Clarence: Dust Buddies

For those of you who haven’t a clue who or what Clarence is check out my volume one review.

Clarence is a Cartoon Network show that is a neat throw back to 90s cartoons such asHey Arthur, Ed Edd n Eddy, Rugrats etc. It’s a little less hip and more little kid-orientated than stuff like Adventure Time. It’s also a show that doesn’t rely heavily on gross-ness, or cute-ness. Another aspect I really appreciate about the show is that (like so many 80s/90s kids shows and movies) it deals with some adult themes that kids can relate to. It doesn’t mollycoddle and present a picture perfect universe which I feel like a lot of modern shows do.

For example, Clarence is raised by his mum and her slacker boyfriend as his dad is no longer around. Clarence is a happy kid but he doesn’t have the most flashest and tidiest of houses. I’m sure this isn’t something kids pick up on but it will represent a childhood a lot of 90s kids grew up in compared to that of the now designer inspired childrens room /pinterest parenting that abounds.

Some topics/stories in this season: cook-offs, Belson’s mum teaches him a lesson and makes him clean the house, Clarence acts like a gentleman with some help of his friends, the gang go on a hike and Clarence goes to a hoity-toity dinner party and tries to entertain himself. Essentially the kids just have every day experiences that are adventures. They have a lot more fun in their lives than today’s tablet/tv/computer game obsessed kids. Imagine how boring the show would be if it were about Clarence trying to get to a new level of a game or binge watching Netflix.

There’s also lots of pop culture references half that go over my head. There’s a Clarence Wiki that details all the references of which a lot tend to be parodies of Nintento/Sega games, but there’s references from everything to Lord of the Rings to Chuck E. Cheese.

The series hasn’t had a full release of season one, they’ve been released in little collections or volumes. They are pretty episodic in nature so it’s not a big deal but I prefer to have a complete season as opposed to many volumes split up. I feel there’s something to watching a series the way it was initially released. It is a kids show and this may be a better format for kids who will enjoy multiple releases and for parents meaning you don’t have to watch an entire season each time they want to watch the release. Dust Buddies is meant to be volume 2 of the series, the first being Myster Pinata. Episodes featured are: